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___ The EarthKeywords: Earth facts, basic planetary data, Earth , flag of the world, Mother Earth, Earth symbol, Gaja, Planet Earth, World time |
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Location :: Name
:: Earth Facts :: Orbital Data
:: Satellites :: Atmosphere
:: Life :: Government :: World
Time :: Earth Map :: Additional Links |
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Planet Earth, Terre, Erde, Chikyu, Tierra, Terra, Gaia, Mother Earth | |
 Planet Earth - seen from Mars orbit. Image: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems Imagine, you are spaceborne in one of this state-of-the-art starships, you are surrounded by the deepest, infinite black that is only lightened by numerous sparkling diamonds of far away suns. You've entered this solar system about a quarter of a megasecond ago, your relative position is approximately 26 000 light years from the centre of this galaxy. Light! On your journey you've passed a star, the data display shows, it is a yellow dwarf of spectral type G2, age about 5 billion years, a relatively young star in the midst of its hydrogen burning. Your travel leads you deeper into the planetary system. And then, if you are very lucky, you will see a crystal blue sphere, a shining, sparkling oasis in the desert of frozen matter. A planet, covered! with water, one of the most precious elements in the known universe. In this moment you realize, this must be all in all the most beautiful place within the next some thousand light years. The data display shows, the globe is a relatively middle sized planet in just the right distance of its sun, that water can exist in its liquid form, the best condition for live. Its inhabitants (who are able to verbalize) call the planet Earth. |
Books about Planet Earth  Earth: Portrait of a Planet  Life's Origin: The Beginnings of Biological Evolution  Planet Earth: As You've Never Seen It Before  Rare Earth Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe  If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens... Where Is Everybody? Fifty Solutions to Fermi's Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life  Earth: An Introduction to Physical Geology  Mother Earth Spirituality Native American Paths to Healing Ourselves and Our World  Rand McNally Atlas of the World |
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Dry Facts about Earth:Location: This Universe
Virgo Supercluster*
Local Group second-largest Galaxy** named "Milky Way"
Orion Arm Solar
System 3rd
planet in distance outward from the local star, named Sun*** Nearest planetary neighbours: Venus (average distance from Sun: 108 million km, 0.7233 AU) and Mars (average distance from Sun: 217 million km, 1.52 AU) The closest stars next to Sun are located in the Centaurus Constellation: Proxima Centauri (Alpha Centauri C), Rigil Kentaurus (Alpha Centauri A), Alpha Centauri B; all in a distance of about 4,3 ly. Closest Galaxy to Milky Way: Sagittarius Dwarf. * Cluster = groups of galaxies held together by mutual gravitational attraction. ** Galaxy (translates literally "milky"), gets its name from a Greek myth about Hera the Goddess of Heaven, who sprayed (by accident) milk across the sky. Romans: Via Lactea = "Road of Milk" derived from the Greek Galaxia (gala, galactos means "milk" = Milky Way) Milky Way: diameter about 100,000 ly, contains about 200-400 billion stars. *** Earth's average distance from Sun: approximately 150 million km or 93 million miles. The mean distance between Earth and the Sun is also used to indicate distances within a solar system, it is called Astronomical Unit, 1 AU = 149,597,870 km or 92,750,680 miles.  The main players in the Solar System are the Sun, the four terrestrial inner planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, the Inner Asteroid Belt (more than 10 million objects, whereof the dwarf planet Ceres is the largest and most massive body), the four gas giant outer planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, followed by the trans-Neptunian objects like the dwarf planets Pluto, Eris and Sedna and cubewanos, objects of the Kuiper belt. Name: Earth is (beside Sedna) the only planet in the solar system, whose name is not derived from the Greek or Roman mythology, the origin of the now used form of naming comes from the Anglo-Saxon word Erda (Erdaz), which means ground, soil, and Earth, the word changed to Eorthe or Erthe in Old English and to Erde in German. 8th Century, in Old High German: erda, al therda, from OHG al th[iu] erda 'der gesamte Erdkreis', (meaning: hole world, earth) Latin: Terra, Norwegian: Jorda, Icelandic: Jord, Aramaic: Ereds, Hebrew: Eretz, Greek: Era.  The
name of Earth in other languages Other names of Mother Earth Earth goddesses: Hertha, Erda, Jörd, Fjörgyn, Hlödyn, Gaia, Tellus. The Iroquois name for Mother Earth is Etenoha, the Lakota call her Ina Maka. Age: Planet Earth is made of stardust, born in the heat of a supernova together with the sun and the other planets. They where formed by gravitational forces which enable the process of the accretion of planetesimals that has originated the solar planets; this has happened about 4.5 to 4.8 billion years ago. Planetary Science Institute: The Origin of the Solar SystemShape: More or less spherical. Size: Fact: the Earth is wider at the equator than from pole to pole, likely because of its rotation - and - the equatorial circumference is growing, possible reasons are: the well-known centrifugal forces, and maybe some transfer of mass from high to low latitudes (high latitude at the poles 90°, low latitude at Earth's equator 0°) and/or a transfer of mass from the Earth's core (the nucleus) and its mantle to the crust. Earth circumferences: Equatorial circumference: 40 076 km (~ 24 902 miles). Polar circumference: 40 005 km (~ 24 858 miles). Diameter of the Earth: Equatorial Radius: 6 378 km (~ 3 963 miles). Polar Radius: 6 357 km (~ 3 950 miles). Volume: V = 4/3  x
r3 = 1 086 781 292 542 cubic km or 260 732 699 457 miles3.
Surface: Total Surface Area: about 509 600 000 square km (197 000 000 square miles). Area of land: 148 326 000 km2 (57 268 900 square miles), this are 29% of the total surface of Planet Earth. Area of water: 361 740 000 km2 (139 668 500 square miles), this are 71% of the total surface of the Earth. 97 percent is salt water, only 3 percent is fresh water. Estimated Mass: 5.976 x1024 kg or roughly 6x1021 metric tons. Substance: Earth consists predominantly of Oxygen, Silicon, Aluminium, Iron, Calcium, Sodium, Potassium, Magnesium, Nickel and Carbon. Density: Earth is the densest major body in the solar system. Density of planet Earth is about 5.52 g/cm3 or 5 520 kg/m3. Water, as you know, has a density of 1000 kg/m3 at 3.98 degrees centigrade and at one atmosphere of pressure. Orbital Data: Sidereal period (Time Earth needs to orbit the sun once) 365.256 days. Rotation: The daily rotation of the Earth, which causes the distinction between day and night, has been used as the basis for time reckoning for thousands of years. It takes 23.9345 hours for the Earth to rotate a complete revolution. Earth's spin axis is not perpendicular, the axis is tilted 23,45°, this circumstance causes the seasons, because Earth's surface changes its position relative to the Sun and therefore the amount of heat delivered to the surface. 
Velocity: The Earth orbits the Sun at a speed of 29.79 km (18.51 miles) per second or 107 870 km (67 027 miles) per hour. Satellites: besides a number of active and obsolete artificial satellites (communications, broadcasting, meteorological, military kind) there are by now 5 known natural satellites, whose orbit is somehow connected with Earth.  Moonpossibly a "child" of Earth, born in a "big whack" in which a roving planetoid, at least as large as Mars, slams into Earth, creating a debris cloud that later coalesces into the moon. This happened exactly 50 million to 100 million years after the solar system's birth. Moon's equatorial radius: 1 738.1 km (~ 1 080 miles) average distance from Earth: 384 000 km (~ 238 607 miles) The Moon orbits Earth in 27.3217 days The Asteroids Asteroid 3753 Cruithne "Earth's second moon" - size: 5 km in diameter - more info Asteroid J002E3, a new moon or space junk? Asteroid 1685 Toro, size: approximately 5 km in diameter Asteroid 1998 UP1 Asteroid 2000 PH5 Planetary Ring System: No Atmosphere: Average Surface Pressure: 1014 millibars. Surface Density: 1.217 kg/m3. The air that you breathe (dry air): Major: 78.084% Nitrogen (N2), 20.946% Oxygen (O2) Minor (parts per million): Argon (Ar) - 9 340; Carbon Dioxide (CO2) 350; Neon (Ne) 18.18; Helium (He) 5.24; CH4 1.7; Krypton (Kr) 1.14; Hydrogen (H2) 0.55. Temperature: Coldest temperature: Minus 89.2 °C (-128.5° F) in Vostok, Antarctica, 1983. Highest temperature: 58°C (136.4° F) at Al'Aziziyah, Libya, on 13th September 1922. Highest Point on Surface: Mount Everest (Latitude 27° 59' N - Longitude 86° 56' E ), revised elevation: 8850 meters (29,035 feet) above sea level. Most precious element on Earth: Beside a crystalline isometric polymorph of carbon (diamonds), the most precious element on earth is CLEAN water. Intelligent Visitors from Outer Space: Infrequently Map of Earth  Earth view using Google Earth With the program Google Earth you can zoom from space to street level — tour the world from your desktop. Life on Planet Earth: Yes, carbon-based lifeforms exists since 3.5 - 3.9 billion years, including animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, and protists there may be over 30 million different species, the total number of animal species currently known is 1.5 million. The lifeform with the most influence on changes on Earth is a near coastlines and rivers living sub-species of a hominid family of primates (a relative old order of mammals), on hind limbs walking members of Homo sapiens sapiens, also called the human race, arisen from the warm heart of the African continent meanwhile spread all over the world; they exist since about 55.000 years - some call this success. Therefore we have a closer look at this human species: Human Communication The fundamental communication system of the human race is based on acoustic as well as kinesic signals. The nonverbal communication of human body signals is, in general, until now underestimated and has not been categorised very well. On the other hand, the human acoustic signal systems can be divided in more than 6,800 different languages (by traditions coherent acoustic signal systems). They are used by the various members of cultural human groups for their communication. About one-third of this languages have writing systems (symbolical pictorial signs of a language; storable and/or for carry away), the others are only spoken (sound generated). Since the beginning of Homo sapiens, new languages have been constantly emerging while others vanished forever. Since about 30.000 years this species have developed additional forms of communication, like paintings, sculptures and carving as well as some kind of melodious acoustic signals based on rhythm and harmony, they call it music. About telepathic communication is less known on Earth.
Population:Today there are more than 6 billion human beings, descendants of the Homo sapiens sapiens. Largest
Urban Agglomerations:Tokyo, Japan with 35.2 million inhabitants (source: UN World Urbanization Prospects: The 2005 Revision) Earth Government: There is no global government for Earth. The organization of sovereign nations, the
United Nations - UN with
its humanitarian, peacekeeping and development tasks, might once play this role.Meanwhile the political power is more or less divided among the
USA and the other 193
Independent States, multinational companies, international
bank consortiums, political as well as religious interest groups, and if you believe
in conspiracy theories, the Illuminati control them all. Constitution of Earth: There is no Constitution of Earth. As a good basis for a future draft would be the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
There is a draft of the
World Constitution
and Parliament Association:
"A
Constitution for the Federation of Earth" as amended at the World Constituent
Assembly In Troia, Portugal 1991. Flag of the world: There is no official flag of the Earth. Symbol:  Earth sign, the symbol for the Earth. World Time: Today on Earth time measurement is based on the rotation of Earth on its axis with respect to the stars (Universal Time - UT). Basis of Universal Time is the mean sidereal time as measured on the Greenwich (England) initial or prime meridian (longitude zero) counted from 0 hours at midnight. UT which is the basis for the worldwide system of civil time, refers to a high precision time scale called "Coordinated Universal Time" (abbreviated UTC), which is accurate to approximately a nanosecond (billionth of a second) per day. Local time of Earth's 24 time zones is given as an integral number of hours offset from UTC. e.g.: Central European Time (CET) = UTC +1h Atlantic Standard Time = UTC -4h Actual Universal Time: Fri-Aug-29 02:37 Continents:(larger continuous masses of land) Number of Continents: 5-7, namely: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia/Oceania, (North America and South America are often considered a single continent, America. Europe and Asia are sometimes considered a single continent, Eurasia.)  Map
of Continents of the World Worlds within the World? The First, the Second, and the Third World.A Three World Model? Planet Earth Maps Political
Map of the WorldWorld map showing independent states borders, dependencies or areas of special sovereignty, islands and island groups as well as capital cities. Physical
Map of the WorldShaded relief map of the world, showing landmasses, continents, oceans, regions, mountain ranges, islands and island groups as well as extreme points. Planet
EarthOutline map of the World. More
Maps:Here you will find more maps of the planet. More Earth Facts Operating
Manual For Spaceship EarthR. B. Fuller's in-depth suggestions and advice to handle the ship. Destination
EarthA scientific guide to Earth as only NASA can. Google
EarthMaps and Satellite images. Visible
EarthA searchable directory of images, visualizations and animations of the Earth. Time A Walk Through Time An easy to understand history of the "Evolution of Time Measurement through the Ages". Earth Systems of Time What is Universal Time? |
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Countries of the World: A - C | D - G | H - L | M - P | Q - T | U - Z Continents: Africa | The Americas | Asia | Australia/Oceania | Europe |
| The Planet Earth page was last modified on: Wednesday, 21-May-2008 11:11:49 CEST |
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